Flash Gordon - Troma City Pollution Attack!

There are days when you can appreciate the subtleties of life. And there are days when the only answer is to blast a 19-year-old album of meathead Japanese thrash. I'll let you decide which kind of day Tuesday was. If you subjected yourself to the first American Presidential debate, then you already know.

I think I first heard Nisshin's Flash Gordon via the classic 4x7" box set from Sound Pollution, "Tomorrow Will Be Worse". That comp, along with the contemporary "Possessed to Skate" comp, was a roadmap of bands to check out. If you liked Spazz (and who wouldn't?), then you'd go check out Romantic Gorilla or Hirax, because they'd done splits with them. You'd start picking up the new records on Six Weeks and Lengua Armada because they'd put out Charles Bronson records, which would lead you to Capitalist Casualties and Los Crudos. I did it as a kid with encyclopedias and "thank you" lists in liner notes; I still do it today with Wiki-walking. You take natural leaps and learn about something brand new. I guess it beats buying something because of a clever title or a crazy cover.

So, Flash Gordon's "Troma City Pollution Attack!": it has both a clever title and a crazy cover. Even if I hadn't been prepared by their American comp appearances, I'd still get a good sense of what I was in for just from the outer package. That's a King Kong-sized Toxic Avenger destroying a city whilst being attacked by jets. Did a 10-year-old draw the cover? Who's to say? Is this Suicidal Tendencies worship, minus the gang violence. Well, maybe. But Suicidal was never this joyously dumb, willing to reference the world of Lloyd Kaufman, "Karate Kid", and Queen. The thrash revival of the early aughts was so much goddamned fun, consistently referential while still building upon what had come before.

I really cannot remember how I laid hands on this. I wasn't doing any overseas mailorder at the time. And while we got a wide range of North American punk & HC releases at Reptilian, we didn't ever really see any Japanese releases, short of some the MCR CDs that I think we got through Sound Pollution/Mordam. Maybe I picked it up through a touring distro? All I know is that it's a great bed mosh record, and a soundtrack well worth listening to when you're falling off your deck.

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various artists - Better Dead Than Read

Let's make this quick, as it's 2am and I've been tip-toeing around a panic attack all day.

I miss seeing AK Press tables at shows. I miss distros and Food Not Bombs and ARA tables and all the non-band-related activity that'd bubble around a hall in the 90s.

John Yates should be a lot more lauded than he is for his graphic design. Even 30 years on, his record covers remain some of my favorite design pieces of all time. Take the below: you can immediately identify that this is going to be some hard left material. His use of imagery and fonts do such a great job of communicating message. If you engage with Instagram, I highly recommend following him; he's been turning out pretty great leftist propaganda this year.

This might have been the first release on Epitaph that I made a point of purchasing. I had a mean hard on about barcodes on records and CDs in those days (thanks, Tim Yo), and most of what came out on Epitaph was more mainstream than I wanted to listen to. But this had a ton of interesting weirdo music on it (Spazz! Tribes of Neurot! Chumbawamba! The Levellers!), so I snagged a copy. Turned me onto a lot I'd otherwise never encounter. No regrets.

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Testors featuring Sonny Vincent - Complete Recordings 1976-1979

How the Christ could it have taken so long for the world to get on board with the Testors?

I've listened to the 2003 Swami release of "Complete Recordings 1976-1979" so much over the past 17 years, and I don't get it. I don't get how someone, anyone, couldn't have heard the demo from 1979, heard them live, and thought, "Yeah, I could sell this to Alice Cooper fans." Or Thin Lizzy fans. Or KISS fans. I just don't get it.

Now, I love the Dead Boys and Ramones and Dictators and Cramps and all the various bands that made up that early New York City scene. But I keep coming back to these recordings. It's not that the others are overplayed to me; it's just the mystery of a band this good, this tight, only getting one self-released record out during their life span. I could see it for any number of bands that weren't from a big rock town. Yet the Testors arguably played in the big rock town during their lifespan, and the classic "Together b/w Time Is Mine" single was all that came out until Incognito released a pair of 10"s in 1995.

I've purposely downgraded the bitrate on this to 128kbps as encouragement to buy this from Sonny's Bandcamp page. Hell, feel free to wait until Friday, when all the $$$ goes directly to him. If I hadn't owned this for so long, I'd almost certainly drop the $14 to snag this.

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Symarip - Skinhead Moonstomp

As novelty records go, this is a pretty good one. Definitely up there with the works of "Weird Al" Yankovic.

You take Prince Buster's touring band, add Alton Ellis's half-brother on vocals, market them to the skinhead youth who were buying up every JA import they could find, and you get Symarip, aka the Pyramids, aka the Bees, aka Seven Letters. You ask them to write topical songs about said skinhead youth, throw in a slightly-altered Lee Hazelwood classic, and somehow you end up with a classic one-off. Is this a purely British phenomena, the knock-off record? I see some parallels between this record and the "faux punk" records of Alberto Y Los Trios Paranoias or F.U.2. They're all proficient and memorable and existed (initally) to fill a void in the marketplace.

In retrospect, it's the Philligree production that really seals the deal for me. Graeme Goodall ran Doctor Bird, Sioux, and Pyramid Records, as well as helped found Island Records. Along with Phil Chen, Goodall gets a bass-heavy, skankable sound that just jumps out of the speakers. I listened to this all the time in 1995 & 1996. It was "the heavy, heavy monster sound", in the parlance of the time.

A double disc set, including the "Monkey Business" compilation, came out in the UK in 1988 and was the first CD release of either record. There's a really nice 2xCD Symarip discography that contains every cut they recorded during their initial tenure; you can probably cop one for less than $15.

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Primal Scream (NYC) - Volume One

This little slice of late 80s thrash is one of my favorite crate digging finds. My in-laws live on California's Central Coast, and when there isn't a pandemic on, and we aren't both unemployed and staving off eviction, Mrs. Ape and I try to go down at least once a year to hang out. Because my in-laws are rad, you see. And I really like the area south of San Francisco; it's the promise of California, writ large.

So we're putzing about one afternoon, checking out Salinas when we see this dinky little thrift store in a strip mall. I already have good feelings when I walk in, see a G1 Soundwave for $5 (a perfect gift for my brother), and Mrs. Ape grips a pair of late-60s, high-waisted gabardine slacks. I dig around in the vinyl, shoved onto a rack of industrial shelving, and pull a copy of "The Coming War With Russia". Not a ground-breaker, but who am I to resist the bat-shittedness of the good Rev. Jack Van Impe? I see a stack of around 25 CDs. Most of it is garbage, but I see Primal Scream on the spine of one and figure, "Well, maybe this is a Creation collection I don't have yet." I take my finds up to the counter. The fella behind and I start talking about the Germs and thrifting around Atlanta. He rings me up for everything. "How about $10 for it all?" "Sure."

I walk out to the car for a smoke, and start logging my music. And that's when I see that my fav Glaswegians (sadly) never put a two-faced baboon on the cover of one of their records.

This Primal Scream was a "throk" quartet from NYC that ran for about 3 years and only released this record along with a demo tape. The best known name here is guitarist/vocalist Keith Alexander, who had started Carnivore with Peter Steele and played with the band until 1986. This reminds me the rockier side of crossover: "Cause for Alarm", "Best Wishes"...you know, those first few years when the metalheads learned how to circle pit. This isn't perfect, but it's more fun than any number of Pantera records. And isn't that what we're all looking for out of life?

This would be the part of the post where I offered to let my cherry-looking copy go for a good deal to a friend of the blog. BUT! The good folks at Pittsburgh's Divebomb Records, who do a fantastic job with their reissues, are re-releasing "Volume One" for the first time in over 30 years in October!!! WHOA!!! That's incredible news for 80s thrash fans, or folks who don't want to spend three figures on a CD. Not only will this rarity be available again, but Divebomb has tacked on the 1986 demo, "The Outrage Continues", as a special bonus. You can preorder the deluxe edition here. At $12, that's a fuggin' killah deal!

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Vinegar Syndrome in October

From "Dial Code Santa Claus" (René Manzor, 1989)

Nothing makes me happier than to see something I like grow in stature. Whether it's their audience, their regard, or in their ability to bring new product to market, it's been awesome to experience Vinegar Syndrome as they've gone from a label who actually cared about restoring Golden Age porn (a noble pursuit, to be honest) to one on the bleeding edge of protecting and restoring independent cinema from around the world. Pretty cool for a company named after dissolving film.

AGFA returns to Baltimore with another no-budget classic in October. Doug Ulrich was influenced by his predecessor Don Dohler, and his 1993 shot-on-video classic, "Scary Tales", is getting a restoration and release I never would have imagined could have happened. "Scary Tales" belongs to a lost era of Baltimore; one filled with arty weirdos, dark, cramped video stores, white trash, and kids (literally) playing with fire. I don't remember the particulars of how I saw this: was it a rental from Reptilian when Chris X still rented videos? Or did we drive down to Goucher and pick it up from Video Americain? Were we introduced via Atomic TV? This is a killer anthology that's deserved a bigger audience for years. Added to this Blu-ray release is Ulrich's 1994 follow-up, "Darkest Soul", a demo reel for "Scary Tales" shot in 1987, and multiple shorts. I cannot recommend this highly enough.

Fun City Editions got off to a good start with its debut release of Amos Poe's "Alphabet City" a couple months ago. They return with an early Jenny Agutter film, 1969's "I Start Counting!" This thriller is uncomfortable and edgy, not just for its period, but even today. A teenage girl, secretly in love with her much older foster brother, finds evidence he may be the serial killer murdering her fellow schoolgirls. It's a quality watch that I'm pretty surprised hasn't ever really been highlighted on video. Director David Greene was better known as a TV film director, having won four Emmys for his work on "Roots" and "Rich Man, Poor Man". But his theatrical run is absolutely worth exploring; he had a knack for exploring taboo family stories without resorting to exploitation. This, along with "Madame Sin" and "The Shuttered Room", are the sort of underseen British movies from the 60s that get ignored in favor of Hammer releases from the same period. Add in a Basil Kirchin score and this equals a really interesting sophomore release for Fun City.

Utopia, the newest addition to the VS family, presents their first release, 2020s "Bloody Nose, Empty Pockets", from the brother team of Bill Ross IV and Turner Ross. The Ross's documentaries have, for the last ten years, told stories that I would have never thought to explore, whether it's been tales of a border town in "Western" or David Byrne's celebration of color guard in "Contemporary Color". "Bloody Nose, Empty Pockets" is set in a Las Vegas bar last day of operation on the night of the 2016 election. The storyline looks interesting, and the filmmakers have always put out intriguing work, so this is an easy sale for me. Utopia will be focusing on new film distribution. I think this is a great debut release for them. The slipcover release is already sold out, so keep that in mind.

Now, let's bathe ourselves in the grindhouse releases from Vinegar Syndrome. First up: the first ever digital release of 1982's "Whodunit?", also known as "Island of Blood". This is one of the wilder adaptations of Agatha Christie's "And Then There Were None", chock full of slashings, thrashing, and the occasional boob. It's a total gore fest, with one of my favorite murders being the one by nail gun to the face. The team from the Hysteria Continues provides commentary for a brand-new 4K restoration from the 35mm negative. Also included are interviews with a number of the cast and crew. As always, Earl Kessler Jr. provides a quality new cover and slipcover. I think this'll be a fun double feature along with this year's Scream Factory release of "April Fool's Day".

"Whodunit?" director Bill Naud would re-emerge six years later as director of 1988's "Rocky" parody, "Ricky 1" and scribe of this month's Vinegar Syndrome Archives release, "Necromancer".  This is B-movie gold, a supernatural reading of "I Spit On Your Grave!". Directed by Pittsburgh native Rocky Nelson, and starring 80s scream queen Elizabeth Kaitan ("Silent Night, Deadly Night Part 2"), this is a welcome spin on the rape revenge flick, a sub-genre that's not that easy to watch any more. Russ Tamblyn pops up as a creepy professor and just owns every scene he's in. This 4K restoration is the first time "Necromancer" has ever been available on disc, and if the trailer is to be believed, it's the best it's ever looked. This is limited to just 4,000 pieces, and comes with the now-standard VSA bottom-loading slipcase and poster.

If you know any work by the director José Ramón Larraz, it's probably his 1974 magnum opus, "Vampyres", easily in my top ten of sexy lesbian vampire movies. After a career in Western Europe making Euro-sleaze, he moved to the US in the late 80s, and made a pair of horror movies under the pseudonym Joseph Braunstein. The first of these is 1987's "Rest In Pieces" ("Descanse en piezas"). This is a quintessential piece of late 80s direct-to-video slime. It has boobs, drownings, decapitations, more boobs, blood sprinklers, and...a haunted mansion? "Rest In Pieces" debuts on disc with a 4K restoration, an interview with lead actor Scott Thompson Baker, and a commentary track featuring Samm Deighan and Kat Ellinger from Diabolique Magazine. There's no one better in the biz to walk you through this late-period film from a trash auteur.

While I haven't gotten my copy of "Grave Robbers" in the mail yet, I'm stoked to see Vinegar Syndrome return to the work of Mexican director Rubén Galindo Jr., this time with his 1985 debut "Cemetery of Terror" ("Cementerio del terror"). Last time, we encountered some Satan worship; now, we get...MORE Satan worship! With ZOMBIES! Viva la diferencia! The Hysteria Continues returns with another commentary, and Galindo Jr. also provides a separate track. I may wait another week or so to order this 4K restoration, but "Cemetery of Terror" looks to be right in my wheelhouse. This is some prime Halloween craziness, the kind of film that should have a place in our regular holiday rotation at the MSO Compound.

And speaking of holidays: let's wrap with a piece of cult French cinema. Vinegar Syndrome's third 4K UHD/Blu-ray release is the first American disc release of "Dial Code Santa Claus" ("36.15 code Père Noël"). Released in English-speaking countries as "Game Over" and "Deadly Games", writer/director René Manzor created a would-be holiday classic that, unfortunately, got buried by the success of the very-similar "Home Alone". Manzor is best known in the States for having helmed a pair of episodes of "The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles", but this 1989 cult classic looks and sounds amazing. It's the horror twist that really sets "Dial Code" apart; instead of a pair of bumbling burglars, the antagonist is an escapee from an asylum, dressed up as Father Christmas. This release is packed full of extras: Manzor sits for a 90-minutes interview, provides storyboards and commentary, and presents both one of his short films and his Bonnie Tyler (!) music video. Child lead Alain Musy also sits for an interview; I'm excited to hear how he transitioned from acting into producing visual effects for the likes of "Edge of Tomorrow" and "Dark Phoenix". I'd love to see more of this kind of release from Vinegar Syndrome: their "Tammy & the T-Rex" and "Rad" releases have been top notch, so I'm hoping this is a trend.

From "Necromancer" (Dusty Nelson, 1988)

There's only one package deal this month: it'll get you all four Vinegar Syndrome releases and "Necromancer" for a bargain $130.00. It's also welcome news to hear that all domestic shipments are now postage paid: while VS's postage rates have always been fair, who doesn't like saving a few quid to get their cult movies? I'll be preordering "Dial Code Santa Claus", and plan to snag "Scary Tales" when I have a few extra bucks. It's also fair to remind everyone that VS always does a Black Friday sale, with fun exclusives and cheap prices for everyone...so don't feel bad to hold off on a few titles.

Midiron Blast Shaft - Igneous Assertions

I'm pretty certain that Friday show was the first time I had seen Pg. 99, Pig Destroyer, and Midiron Blast Shaft. I don't think there were more than 75 people at either show. Chew on that for a second.

I dashed off a quick post about my favorite forgotten Reptilian band, Midiron Blast Shaft, almost 12 years ago on the heels of my next door neighbor setting his house on fire with a lit cigarette, rousing my ex-wife and I from a sound sleep and into the yard for 3 hours. Thankfully, my justification for revisiting this, the first Midiron Blast Shaft record, is simply the entire world sick and/or on fire. Great timing.

Chris X always had a soft spot for noisy bands from his hometown of Philadelphia, and this quartet of wig-wearing guitar humpers fit the bill to a T. There's some tasty Shellac worship at play here on their first album, along with the barely-intelligible vocals that were Midiron's trademark. The songs here are pretty straightforward compared to "Starts Fires In Your Pants"; it sounds a lot more Ink & Dagger than it does Cherubs, but it's still pretty damned good. There's enough sexy in these jams to make you want to sniff a couple poppers and get wild in a bathroom stall.

The Midiron Blast Shaft tree takes some interesting turns after their 2002 break-up. Members would spin off into Fight Amputation and Gunna Vahm, and would later turn up in Philadelphia's Faking, who've been making some pretty bad-ass noise rock of their own in recent years. At any rate, if you're feeling this, you absolutely should snag their second and finest record, "Starts Fires In Your Pants", from Reptilian Records - STILL a quality purveyor of devilishly fine rock 'n' roll like Grandpa used to hump to.

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The Criterion Collection in October

From "Parasite" (Bong Joon-ho, 2019)

All hits, no filler. That's my capsule review of October's Criterion releases. You get last year's Best Picture Academy Award winner, a Gregory Peck oater from the 50s, one of the finest rom-coms from the 70s, and reissues of Godard and Frears. I'm jumping in.

October 6

I'm woefully uninterested by Jean-Luc Godard, a fact Mrs. Ape gleefully points out whenever we're talking about the French New Wave. There's just something about his work that's never clicked with me; his worldview interests me, his actors over six decades thrill me, he ticks all the boxes in theory. But while I'll dive into a Truffaut or Varda or Melville, I've just never gotten stoked on digging into what makes Godard so great.

So I guess this re-release of "Pierrot le fou" is as good an excuse as any to give him another go. Jean-Paul Belmondo and Anna Karina go on a roadtrip full of romance, seeking to escape the material West in the French countryside. That sounds like a swell time. Mrs. Ape says, "Buy this because it's the last fun Godard movie, before he got all experimental and serious". There's a new 2K digital restoration of the print from 2008, which was supervised by cinematographer Raoul Coutard. All the extras from Criterion's 2008 release are still here, along with a brand new cover.

October 13

1974's "Claudine" is a lovely, gentle film that sometimes gets lost amongst the blaxsploitation scene of that period. I had a conversation with someone in college, asking why Diahann Carroll was a star, and they recommended I check this out. Its story of two working-class people finding love and meaning in a declining Abe Beame-era New York City really resonates with me, especially as I've gone through periods of poverty myself. Carroll and James Earl Jones are amazing in the lead roles. Director John Berry had worked with John Houseman and Orson Welles at the Mercury Theatre, but had been blacklisted after being named as a communist in from of HUAC. This was his return from exile in Europe, and it's fantastic. AND funny!

The film has received a 4K restoration from Criterion for this release, as well as new artwork and a conversation between director Robert Townsend ("Hollywood Shuffle") and Ashley Clark on the film. The disc also has the commentary track from the 2003 20th Century Fox DVD release; it's a cracking piece of conversation featuring Carroll and Jones. This is one of those releases I'd love to see Criterion do a one-sheet for; the Alphaville design and illustration is top notch.

October 20

I don't know why I'm ever shocked that Criterion adds classic westerns to the Collection. Maybe it's because I was raised on revisionist Westerns, but it's taken a long time to gain an appreciation for John Ford and Delmar Daves. Likewise with the work of Henry King. I probably own a dozen movies by the longtime 20th Century Fox director, although most of them are either swashbucklers or Hemingway adaptations. I've never seen 1950's "The Gunfighter", but based on reviews, it seems like I'd like it. Gregory Peck plays Johnny Ringo, an infamous bulletman and the target of every red-assed young gunslinger in the Old West. Everything I've read tells me this is a direct precursor to the spaghetti westerns and Peckinpah shoot-'em-ups that remain my favorites.

"The Gunfighter" gets a 4K restoration for this initial release; it's never been available on Blu-ray here in the States, and the print used for the previous Fox releases has been pretty cruddy looking. Documentarian Gina Telaroli shows up for a feature on King's body of work, and K. Austin Collins (Vanity Fair, The Ringer) provides an essay. But for me, the best feature is the killer cover art by UK illustrator Jennifer Dionisio. I loved the cover she did for "Detour", so it's awesome to see her to another piece for Criterion.

Stephen Frears' 1984 "The Hit" is one of my favorite road movies. It has General Zod, Kane, and Mr. Pink in it, for fuck's sake, travelling through Spain towards Paris so Terence Stamp can face his fate. Along with "High Fidelity" and "The Grifters", it's high on my Frears favorite list. Watching Stamp slowly work up John Hurt and Tim Roth is a great reminder of how riveting an actor he can be. Criterion originally put this out in 2010; I have it on DVD, but apparently it's getting a reissue with an all-new 2K restoration on the Blu-ray. I would ABSOLUTELY recommend snagging this if you've never seen it; for super big-time fun, watch it back to back with William Friedkin's "Sorcerer", preferably with this as the second film in the double feature.

October 27

I don't think I need to twist anyone's arm to watch "Parasite" ("기생충") at this point. It's almost unanimously everyone's top film from 2019. It's the first non-English film to win the Academy Award for Best Picture, and the first film in 64 years to take home both the Oscar and the Palme d'Or. It rightfully established Boon Jong-ho as one of the top directors of this century.

But I still haven't seen it. Let me explain.

I've been following Boon since I heard good things about "The Host" ("괴물") and bought it the day Magnolia released the 2-disc DVD in 2007. I waited patiently for "Mother" ("마더") to come out on DVD in the States, and ended up snagging a South Korean copy when I couldn't wait any longer. I followed every step of "Snowpiercer"s production cycle, sent The Weinstein Company angry e-mails when they discussed editing the film down by 20 minutes, signed a petition to get it released to theatres, and finally saw it on the big screen. I even stayed up late to stream "Okja" at midnight on June 28, 2017; that's how much I love his work.

But things took a turn for me professionally a few months after "Okja" came out, so going to the movies and, soon, even streaming was no longer in the cards. I was too busy applying for jobs and trying to make rent and selling off the less necessary possessions to stay afloat. I was thrilled to hear people respond to Boon's newest film the same way I had for more than a decade, and, obviously, I wanted to see it as soon as possible. So I've managed, despite all the media coverage for more than a year, to stay reasonably spoiler-free. I know the basic plot framing, and that's it. A buddy gave me his Hulu log-in a few weeks after Criterion announced this release, but now I'm committed to watching it with all the features, the same way I did the first time I watched "Jules et Jim" or "The Hidden Fortress". I wanted to see it for the first time with the full Criterion treatment.

So...what does your $30-$40 get you when you buy "Parasite"? You get a 4K digital scan, supervised and approved by Boon and his DP Hong Kyung-po. There's an alternate black and white version of the film, a la "Mad Max: Blood and Chrome". It got some theatrical play earlier this year. The sound is mixed for Dolby Atmos on the Blu-ray; those of you with the serious home theatre setups will get a kick out of that. Critic Darcy Paquet, whose work has helped raise awareness of New Korean Cinema to white audiences, joins with Boon for a discussion on the film. Longtime BFI critic Tony Rayns appears on the commentary track with Boon, and Inkoo Kang from the Hollywood Reporter supplies the essay. There's a storyboard comparison feature, featurettes from Cannes and Lyon 2019, and a program on New Korean Cinema featuring both Boon and director Park Chan-wook ("The Vengeance Trilogy"). No wonder it's a 2 x Blu-ray/3 x DVD release. This thing is packed; it'll be a joy unpacking it.

I mentioned last month that I felt all five of these are must-haves. Having now broken them down a bit, I'll revise that a bit. I preordered "Parasite" the day it was announced; there's no way I was fucking around any more. "Claudine" is next on my list, with the reissues and "The Gunfighter" not far behind. Like I said before, it's a pretty damned good slate this month. November looks to be just as lively with a Fellini best-of set, my favorite Jim Jarmusch movie, and the latest Scorsese all taking a bow. See you in 30.

From "Claudine" (John Berry, 1974)

various artists - You'll Never Eat Fast Food Again

Regular readers of the blog may be wondering, "Did the big Ape go off the deep end after their birthday?" Naw, although I did give myself a little break to think about what I wanted to write about next. After all, you come here for high-quality insights, honesty, and the reasonably obscure. I don't want to dash missives off just to make a deadline.

So I thought, "What about shitty comps and samplers?"

See, I have always loved a well-curated compilation, as well as an inexpensive sampler. Both have died off a bit, replaced by Bandcamp benefits or limited edition RSD vinyl. CDs weren't perfect, but they were so cheap you could give them away; if you scored a single sale on 100 samplers given away, you paid for your investment. So I have a ton of these damn things in boxes in my apartment, knowing they're the reason I got into Assholeparade or Albert Ayler or Antischism, just to name a few "A" bands.

The flip side are the really cruddy samplers that I held onto because they had one song worth owning. It's why I have a bunch of Victory Records giveaways and Warped Tour double CDs taking up space. That Geffen comp has a bunch of mid-90s garbage on it, but it also has great songs from Nirvana and that dog. on it. I still have CMJ CDs from the late 80s because they had a Sun Ra song on them, or a Fudge Tunnel track that I was really stoked on in 1993.

"You'll Never Eat Fast Food Again" is the perfect illustration of my point. There's a ton of mall punk dross here, from the major-label-masquerading-as-an-indie Drive-Thru Records. Allister, Cousin Oliver, Midtown, Fenix*Tx, RX Bandits: all the (s)hits are here. It's all perfectly inoffensive, unremarkable music that was targeted to kids who'd never held a zine. Cool, cool, cool cool. Cool. But...

I held onto this for the Wrens and New Found Glory tracks. I had no clue who the Wrens were in 1999; only that they sounded like the only adults on this entire record. As the story goes, the Wrens were dropped by Wind-Up, and had a handshake deal to put out their third record with Drive-Thru. However, the only work they released together were the two songs here: an early version of "This Boy Is Exhausted", and "Miss Me", which wouldn't make it onto "The Meadowlands" four years later.

New Found Glory was the only band here I was familiar with before getting a promo of this around its release date. This was Chad from Shai Hulud's pop punk band. Shai Hulud had released a trio of brutal records in the two years before this came out, and Chad had been passing around copies of the NFG EP on Fiddler as Shai Hulud toured behind them. There was no denying that this was some catchy, high-quality pop punk; the songs were tight and super well-written, the recording was raw and honest, and the first full-length on Eulogy flowed perfectly with its added movie samples. No wonder that Drive-Thru paid $5,000 to license that LP and reissue it. Their two songs here, "Hit and Miss" and "3rd and Long", are perfect examples of how good that era of pop punk could be.

The first version of this release, produced before Drive-Thru began distribution through MCA, has a total of 25 songs on it. It also has the NFG songs with samples in them. The version you'll encounter the most in the wild (posted here) drops songs from Mothermania, Face First, and Cousin Oliver. There's a cover variant that's missing the Parental Warning hype. There's also a giveaway that, for some reason, only has 16 songs on it, dropping the last six that are found on the common version. That's a lot of variation for a $2.99 CD.

Discogs

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Melvins - Your Choice Live Series 012

Let's keep this one short: here's the last of the Your Choice Live series that I own(ed). I found this a few years ago for less than $10, turned around and sold it for more than $10. This came out in the midst of  Boner Records-era Melvins; the lineup is Buzzo, Dale, and Lori on bass. They were sooooo young.

Melvins were always one of those bands I felt I should like more than I do. They have fun merch and great record covers and work with great labels, yet their music is just a muffled fart on a snare drum to me. Maybe I just haven't encountered the right record yet? God knows they have a deep enough catalog that there has to be something I'd like, right?

More trenchant insights tomorrow, I swear!

Discogs

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Augustus Pablo - East Of The River Nile

I'm 43 today.

I've really hit a wall about what I wanted to write about for this momentous occasion. Birthdays are just...mehf. I come from Patton Oswalt's stance on the matter: when you're an adult, a celebration once a decade until you're 90, then a slap on the ass the other nine birthdays. Is it a sign of a depressed personality? Almost certainly; I'll own it. I'm part of that last "great" generation of white men who were raised to believe that no one really gives a shit about your feelings, and that you should do something that really "matters" if you think you should be celebrated. No wonder I'm fucking depressed. What a hell of a way to be raised.

I've often thought about musicians dying young as I've grown older. I once thought I wouldn't make it past 22 (Buddy Holly, Darby Crash). 1999 was such a shit year, having sold a big chunk of my record collection, split up with the first love of my life, and moved off to a college I'd fail out of within a year. I slept with a pistol under a pillow for months, begging myself not to use it. I blew past the 27 Club. I got married, finally got a degree, and bought a house. Within another five years, most of that would be gone, the only thing left another several years of student debt. I hit 40, and I felt like I finally had the world by the balls. I lived in a place I loved, with a woman I adored, making a living wage for the first time ever. I even took a real staycation for the first time ever. I returned to work three days later, and got laid off. I haven't had a stable job since.

Can you see why I'm not high on my birthday? There are times where it feels like it's the herald of a new load of misery.

Augustus Pablo was 44 when he died of a collapsed lung in 1999. There are two ways I look at this. One is that I'm almost as old as he was, and that I'll never make a work of art as great or lasting as "East of the River Nile". The man made the melodica sound as cool as Coltrane's sax or Watt's bass. What can I possibly do to measure up? The other is that I'm still here; I can still discover the genius in a piece of art like this. It's in the discovering that, even when everything else feels like it's shit, I find the momentum to keep moving. Crate digging can make a bad day good, a good day great. I found a Canadian cassette of this a couple years ago that had never been entered on Discogs; at 19 cents, it's probably one of my favorite thrift store finds from the past few years.

Depression is an anchor that weighs me down every day. I take medicine and participate in therapy and work on myself every day and it's a fucking drag even on the best days. Yeah, even on a day like today, it can be tempting to let myself drown. It's music like this that helps me float, sometimes even surf in life.

Discogs

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Yaphet Kotto / This Machine Kills / Envy

Yaphet Kotto, circa 2003 (photo by Naz Hamid)

I'd imagine any show featuring these three bands would have been a pretty good one.

In 2002, Santa Cruz's Yaphet Kotto and This Machine Kills from Santa Barbara traveled to Japan to play with Envy from Tokyo. The tour was entitled "No Sleep Til Jaguchi". I have no clue what that's a reference to. When the tour ended, the three bands wrote a song called "A Collaborative Song", which was then performed by the lineup of Steve and Brian from This Machine Kills, Casey & Mag from Yaphet Kotto, and Masahiro, Nobukata, and Tetsuya from Envy. It's all pretty magical.

The divergent fortunes of each band after this Japan-only release fascinates me to no end. Yaphet Kotto would carry on for another three years, putting out one more 12" with Ebullition and making music that was out of step with the popular paradigm of the early/mid-aughts, but that fits in really well with what seems to be hot with the punx of 2020. Casey from YK now plays in an Oi! band with Lars from Rancid; Mag has a new band called Middle-Aged Queers that looks to be following the Limp Wrist template of fun queer punk.

This Machine Kills called it a day shortly after this tour. Steve Aoki became a pretty big deal in the following years. Dim Mak had already become the West Coast's answer to Troubleman by 2002, putting out super hip records from indie bands just emerging above ground. Within a few years, they'd be the home base for Bloc Party and Pretty Girls Make Graves. Then, of course, Aoki started making his name for dance music, becoming one of the few people to headline both the Ché Café and Electric Daisy Festival.

Envy really started hitting their groove and making their rep with this tour. They followed this up with 2003's self-released "A Dead Sinking Story", which would soon be championed by Mogwai in the UK and in the States by Level Plane Records. Their next three full-lengths would explode brains, melding post-rock sounds with Tetsuya's intenses spoken/screamed vocals. They collaborated with Justin Broadrick and Thursday on separate split 12"s, both of which continued to set bars for what could be done coming from the world of 90s hardcore. And after a break of three years, they returned this year with "The Fallen Crimson", which I really should buy a copy of.

Discogs

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(The) Monorchid - Who Put Out The Fire?

Monorchid (photo by Drew McDermott)

A monorchid is a being with only one testicle. (The) Monorchid was a brainworm I couldn't shake out of my head, with triple the balls the name would imply.

I came to Monorchid in a backwards fashion. I booked Wrangler Brutes into the Art Space, in no small part because Andy and Brooks from Skull Kontrol were the rhythm section behind Cundo from Nazti Skins and some dude named Sam. I liked Skull Kontrol (check the name of the blog, dog), and someone mentioned that Andy and Chris, the singer of Skull Kontrol, had done a band in DC before that called Monorchid. So I snagged a copy of their second and final LP, "Who Put Out The Fire?", and, well...

This is where I finally learned that if Chris Thomson was involved in something, I'd probably like it. The thru-thread spun through DC to Madison back to DC and on to Chicaog, from Ignition to Fury to Circus Lupus to Las Mordidas, on to Skull Kontrol to Red Eyed Legends to Coffin Pricks. It was going to be punk and weird and beyond cool and worth studying. When I sang, I wanted everything to sound like a glorious ad lib, no matter if it was stream of conciousness or written months before...to possess that sense of cool I always heard in Chris's voice.

"Who Put Out The Fire?" came out the same year as "Terraform", "What Burns Never Returns", and "Starters Alternators". It was a veritable murderer's row of great records from Touch & Go in 1998, which makes their infrequent releases in 2020 a goddamned shame.

Discogs

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Sex Vid - Voyeur

I was thinking about mysterious guy hardcore recently, and what a feverish, overblown internet thing it was, conjured out of message board hype and limited run vinyl. Now, it's not that there weren't, simultaneously, a bunch of bands making grimy hardcore influenced as much by industrial music as they were UK82 or the early Touch & Go releases. But to assign sub-genre to highly anti-commerical bands is kinda beside the point, no?

Sex Vid are one of those bands I remember best from that time. They hailed from Kill Rock Stars country, but sounded like they'd been raised on a diet of third-gen Die Kreuzen bootleg cassettes they found while skateboarding down at a truck stop. I'd heard them for the first time on the second Fucked Up mixtape. And, unlike kindred spirits the Repos or Vile Gash, there was no redeeming art option to the presentation. Sex Vid was all degraded photocopies, UHF static, whispers through a ham radio. They might as well have been from a goddamn separate universe from the branding machinery that had been infiltrating punk music for most of the past decade. This was ugly music for the uncool.

Oddly enough, "Voyeur", their final 7", is the one Sex Vid record I don't own a physical copy of. It's a live document from 2008, from their home territory of Olympia. It was also the second of three records they'd release in 2008, culiminating in the "Communal Living" 12". They were cooked by the time 2010 rolled around. Guitarist Dave Harvey has left the most evidence of his post-Sex Vid life; as the good Captain Tripps Ballsington, he's recorded a ton of your favorite records of the past ten years, including the new All Hits and Gag slabs, of which I'm a fan.

Discogs

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Razors Edge - SONIC! FAST! LIFE!

RAZORS EDGE, circa 2016 (from Facebook)

While I've never seen them live, I don't think I'll ever experience a band as much fun as Osaka's RAZORS EDGE. There's an absolute joy that saturates every record, every flier, every live video I've come across. I won't say it's amazing to see a DIY group maintain that attitude across a quarter century and eight full-lengths, but it is inspirational. I listen to RAZORS EDGE, and I want to make the people I come in contact with feel as good as their music makes me feel. It's a small goal, but a noble one, I think.

2010's "SONIC! FAST! LIFE!" is RAZORS EDGE's seventh full length. You're not going to get any curveballs here; this is thrashy, circle pit heaven. There's not a single song longer than 2:19, with five tracks coming in under a minute long. There are songs entitled "SKATE RIOT", "SO MUCH FUN", "RAZORS FUCKIN' RULE", and "I HATE WRITING LYRICS". Do I have to spell it out for you? It's like a wonderfully distilled thrash tape fell into a wormhole and came out the other side in 2010. The result, as I noted above, is joyful, magical.

RAZORS EDGE hasn't made a full-length record in five years, nor released a new recording in 2020, but they had planned some tour dates prior to COVID-19, which, sadly, haven't been rescheduled. I'd love to see these fellas make their way over to the States, but it appears, if I want to see them live, I'll have to head to Osaka. Such a sacrifice. ;)

Discogs

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various artists - Tropicana '84-'99

Robin and Elaine at the Tropicana, Olympia, WA (from the Tropicana Facebook page)

I have no clue about the origins of this here CD-R I found last year, but it's a winner of rare-ass WA state punk and garage. The Tropicana was an all-ages space in Olympia that only existed for two years, but served as an incubator for bands like Green River, the Melvins, the U-Men, and Beat Happening. The most recognizable name is Tacoma's Girl Trouble, subjects of a wonderful documentary from a few years ago and maker of numerous rackets since 1987. Also appearing are Noxious Fumes, Immoral Roberts, and Young Pioneers, all of whom put out recordings with K. There are four bands rounding out the comp, none of whom put out anything more than demos back in the days. The addition of Wimps, Generic Crib Death, Communicator, and Idle Worship makes this more than just a KBD-style bootleg. This is a really cool time capsule of an embryonic scene that, within a couple of years, would be setting the pace for the rest of the nation.

Discogs

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Thorns of Life - live at 924 Gilman St., 31 January 2009

Thorns of Life, live at 924 Gilman, 2009 (photo by Chris Shary)

I'm happy that Jawbreaker is a band again, although I really doubt I'll ever go see them. They were the Bucky Barnes of punk rock; they had died, and were never coming back...until they did. Which, you know, mazel tov. But I cannot separate my expectations with ready availability. Call it a moral failing. Who knows?

Instead, I revel in the static nature of old Jawbreaker records, and following the bands that each member went on to play in. Whether it was Chris in Horace Pinker, or Adam playing with the Baluyut brothers in Whysall Lane, it was fun seeing what happened as people moved on, but still made art. The first Jets to Brazil record, made with Chris from Texas is the Reason a few years after the breakup of Jawbreaker, remains one of my favorites from that era. But then Blake quit making music publicly. Was he still teaching English at Hunter College? Was he writing video game reviews? Did he publish poetry under a pen name? Was he on a lobster boat out in the Grand Banks? This fella, who'd soundtracked so many years of my life and carried so many expectations, was now a cipher, a riddle.

And then I read on the .org that Blake, Aaron Cometbus, and Daniela from the Gr'ups are playing music together. The hope is that they'll make it south (at least to Philly); instead, they play a couple times in Brooklyn, then head out west to California for a short tour. They play a week's worth of shows, reviews are suitably hyped, they return home, they break up by summertime. They left behind a song on a Silver Sprocket comp and this, the only live recording I've ever heard of them. Pretty good looking show, too; I'd pay $8 just for Thorns of Life. Off With Their Heads and Comadre are a great bonus.

Look: if you're a Jawbreaker or Crimpshrine fan, you're probably going to be 100% down with this. It's not a hard sell, as we say in the biz. It bums me out that most of these songs never got their day in the studio; "O Deadly Death" and "Ribbonhead" ended up on the Forgetters' full-length in 2012, and sound outstanding with J. Robbins' in the engineer's seat.

Click here to download.

What we're buying this Bandcamp Friday

I'm not going to say that Bandcamp Friday stands in opposition to Record Store Day, but I will say that I enjoy the former much more than the latter. I like that more of my purchase is going to the band, and that it pushes me to pick up more new music, instead of a reissue, or something I already own on digital or CD. It's pretty rad that, since starting this in March, it's generated over $75 million dollars (!!!) for independent bands and labels. That shows real support for a scene that's hurting bad from a pandemic-induced shutdown. So here's what I'm planning on picking up today.

I'm a big fan of the former bands of each member of Truth Cult: Joe Biden, Post Pink, Protester, Pure Disgust...these are the sounds of DC & Baltimore from the last ten years. I've held off on picking up their demo tape from 2018 for a while. But now that Truth Cult has a new LP, "Off Fire", that came out in May on Pop Wig, the time is right to snag both records. "Off Fire" has a great vibe to it. It's hardcore with a snotty edge to it, very danceable, just fun.

I picked up last year's demo from Portland's All Hits in July, and I really liked their speedy, post punk. It's super primitive, reminding me a lot of Chainsaw-era Sleater-Kinney, but with shouty, Oi!-style choruses. Anything that's that floor tom heavy is going to get me hyped. Iron Lung put out their first full-length, "Men and Their Work", in June, and no less than Rough Trade named it their record of the week. If you can find the vinyl, snag it; it was limited to 500 pieces, and it's been pretty tough to track down.

I would have never guessed that Downcast would have put out a new record in 2020, or that Ebullition Records would have a hand in releasing it. Their 1991 self-titled record was the first record on Ebullition I ever picked up, and it's held an honored place in my collection ever since. "Tell Me I'm Alive" came out via 31G and Ebullition back in February, and it's time I moved from the occasional stream to buying a copy. They've held their political edge, a trait I'm thrilled to hear is strong as ever.

Sticking with Ebullition releases for a minute: they also released the first record from Portland's Visions. This self-titled 12" features 3/4 of Dead Cult and Sara from Vicious Pleasures on vocals; what I've heard reminds me of a gothier Terrible Feelings. I've found myself being increasingly drawn to deathrock and other goth-influenced punk in recent years; blame a band like Arctic Flowers, who I really got into, or finding cheap Gun Club records in the wild.

I had meant to grab the newest Concrete City single during last month's Bandcamp Friday, but I forgot to add it to my wishlist, so I overlooked it. "Smash the Old World & Pink Shirt" is their SEVENTH digital release in 14 months, and they remain not only prolific, but probably the best rock band in Baltimore right now. This is their second pandemic-era release, along with a live on WTMD session from 2019, and the quality shows zero fall-off. This is top notch power pop from folks who have playing longer than some of us have been alive. Now if only we can get a bit of physical media out of these kids.

Philadelphia's Soul Glo's 2019 record, "The N***a In Me Is Me", hit me like a ton of bricks. It's what I had always heard Death Grips described as, but never actually experienced. Their fusion of hardcore, hip hop, noise, breakbeat, and lo-fi is unlike a lot of what I've found in recent years, and made me wish I lived back on the East Coast so I could see these dudes with some great regularity. I've had their "Live at WKDU" session on my wishlist longer than anything else. I think it's time to pony up and see how their incredible sound translates to a live in the studio recording.

Arizona's King of the Monsters was always a label to watch for me. They put out heavy music, had an awesome design aesthetic, and they were always priced inexpensively. That's 3 for 3, in case you're counting. They put out a discography for grind/crust masters Unruh about 5 years ago, and it's apparently been uploaded to Bandcamp this week. I knew about Unruh via their split with Creation is Crucifixion and their appearance on "Cry Now, Cry Later Vol. 1 & 2" reissue. When I listened to them, I wanted to grow out dreads and headbang. "Tomb" everything Unruh ever put out, and, at $12.50, is a lot cheaper than trying to track everything down. Hell for $25, you can get the box set itself. That's a good price!

There's obviously a ton to find on Bandcamp, and the digging can be the best part. I'm certain, as with previous Bandcamp Fridays, that there'll be some cool, limited edition releases posted up, so be sure to take a look.

The Out_Circuit - Burn Your Scripts, Boys (unmastered)

Nathan Burke is the Out_Circuit

I honestly couldn't even tell you the "when I saw them" part of when I saw the Out_Circuit. I would guess it was the Ottobar, 2002, even though I haven't the faintest idea who else played with them. Such was the impression they left on me that night. It was what I heard when I listened to Smart Went Crazy, to Karate, to Juno; the influence of ambient music, jazz, post-hardcore, presented live in a way I hadn't heard often. I listened to "Burn Your Scripts, Boys" like it was going out of style. I assumed they'd end up doing the record with Magic Bullet or Lovitt or DeSoto. Yet it took over two years for a label to pick this up, finally releasing in 2004 as a split between D.C.'s Lujo Records and the UK's Autoclave Records on the CD, and Austin's Arclight Records on the vinyl. I was pretty boggled at the delay. Even going 15 years since my last listen, I'm still amazed that more people haven't discovered this.

This is ripped from the initial, limited to 250 units CD-R that I picked up from Nathan that night at the Ottobar. Recorded by Ken Olden and Brian McTernan in DC, it would later be mastered by Chad Clark for the actual release. I hear more distortion on the bass end of this unmastered release. It's never been an unappealing thing to me; I like hearing things in progress. I discovered that Nathan Burke now lives out here in Seattle, and put out a new Out_Circuit record in 2018. I'll be picking that one up this Friday for Bandcamp Friday.

Discogs

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Doughboys - Whatever

Doughboys

Montreal's Doughboys were simpatico with ALL and Mega City Four; hell, Wiz from MC4 even joined Doughboys for their last two records of punk pop. Led by ex-Asexual John Kastner, they made a go of it, making six LPs between 1987 and 1996. They are the kind of band I wish I had been familiar with during their heyday; their last three albums came out on A&M, not some indie with cruddy distribution, and their sound should have broken through as part of the alternative boom of the early 90s.

"Whatever" was their first album, originally released in Canada by MTL Records and Pipeline Records, and reissued in the States by Cargo Records. It's arguably their "punkest" record. The ten songs here blur by in just 28 minutes and, like their contemporaries from California and Hampshire, blazed a path for the sort of tuneful punk that'd be championed by No Idea and Boss Tuneage a decade later.

Discogs

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